Patents, Tradmarks, & Copyrights  

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In an era when technology and new emerging technologies are driving forces in the design and re-engineering of new products, it is important to recognize how the patent literature informs business models and changes.  In the area of technology transfer, and intellectual property, protecting one's intellectual contributions is critically important as the commercial potential for product development can be advanced very quicky.  Legally, individuals and corporate entities must be careful about filing these forms of intellectual property and complying with the jurisdiction in which they reside or are registered.

Simply stated, patents are defined as the right granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof. A patent is, in effect, a limited property right that the government offers to inventors in exchange for their agreement to share the details of their inventions with the public. Like any other property right, it may be sold, licensed, mortgaged, assigned or transferred, given away, or simply abandoned.

The rights conveyed by a patent vary country-by-country.  National patent depositories make available patent registries and copies of all patents awarded by them.  In the United States, under current patent law, for patents filed on or after June 8, 1995, the term of the patent is 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date. For patents filed prior to June 8, 1995, the term of patent is either 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date or 17 years from the issue date, whichever is longer.  Additional information about patents is found or cited i the list of Reference Works under that tab.

Trademarks are defined as the distinctively recognized sign or indicator used by an individual, organization, corporation or other legal entity to identify that the products and/or services to consumers or the public with whichthe trademark appears originate from a unique source of origin and can be distinguished as such.  Trademarks are identified by the symbols ™ and ®,  Another form of intellectual property, a trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, symbol, design, logo,  image or some combination of these forms.

This guide covers both US Patents and Trademarks and International.  The Key Sites tab will direct you to both lists of appropriate sources.

The top 300 organizations that were granted US Patents in 2010 revealed that the University of California system was #83 with 349 patents.

When using Online or Internet Resources, consider Search Engines vs. metasites - evaluate resource - consider domain - .edu, .com, .gov, .org, etc.

Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources - or Evaluation Techniques for Internet Resources

1. Authority control - authorship - who, affiliation, where
2. Currency - note the date, the update, does it reflect the right period of time
3. Evaluate the source - establish criteria that is meaningful to covering the topic
4. Citing Internet resources - URL & date of the search
5. Capturing and citing
6. Copying